Free White Heat by Pamela Kent Page A

Shall I contact her from Sydney and suggest that I put you on the train?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ she returned, stiffly, and with as much emphasis as before. ‘That will be quite unnecessary.’
    ‘A pity,’ he mused, as he looked down at her ... and it struck her that his eyes were suddenly reminiscent. ‘Sarah, at your age, was extraordinarily like you ... and it’s Sarah with an “h”, which suits her. She’s still, I believe, fantastically beautiful, but I haven’t seen her for some time, so I wouldn’t really know. However, she has the type of face that will not age easily.’
    Tight-lipped, Karin asked:
    ‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m fantastically beautiful, and that I have the type of face that will not age easily?’
    He looked surprised; and then he even looked mortally offended.
    ‘Good heavens, no! I mean,’ as too late he recognized the rudeness of his response, ‘I mean — or rather, I meant — that you have something of her colouring, and occasionally when I look at you I’m reminded of her. She was the most beautiful deb of her year when she came out ten years ago, and if she hadn’t rushed into marriage when she did she might quite easily have secured a worthwhile title, or married a man with a great deal more substance than the man she married was endowed with. Actually, he was hard up and in serious debt at the time of the marriage,’ his lips compressing themselves so closely that they appeared to form a thin line in his face.
    ‘So you offered him the job in Australia, and he took your beautiful friend Sarah into the wilderness with him?’ Karin enunciated with a kind of spiteful clearness.
    ‘Yes,’ Willoughby admitted, his mouth still resembling a closed steel trap.
    ‘And the only reason you’ve condescended to notice me occasionally, and are not entirely happy when I’m around, is because I bear a faint — faint — resemblance to the most enchanting deb of her year,’ Karin stated rather than suggested, with a biting incisiveness as well as disdain in her voice.
    The man who stood so close to her relaxed a little, and looked surprised.
    ‘Is it?’ he asked, as if he really didn’t know himself.
    ‘It stands out like a sore thumb.’
    ‘Does it?’ He was beginning to be mildly amused.
    ‘It also explains the reason why you took such a dislike to me. The beautiful Sarah almost certainly did something that upset you, and I don’t think you’ve properly forgiven her yet,’ she explained, with extraordinary perspicacity considering her years. She looked at him as if, however much he disliked and disapproved of her, she now disliked and disapproved of him even more ... in fact, his very proximity offended her.
    She moved away from him.
    ‘I think Sarah was lucky,’ she said. ‘Lucky because she didn’t marry you, and lucky because she’s probably settled down quite contentedly in Australia, although you hope she hasn’t. And if you’re going out to stir up trouble, to try and revive memories.. .’
    His face hardened again.
    ‘Be quiet,’ he ordered. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
    She gazed at him disdainfully.
    ‘Don’t I? I think I do! And one thing I’ll be glad about when I reach Australia is that it’s a big country, and there’ll be little likelihood of our bumping into one another! You’ll go your way, and I’ll go mine. In fact, after tonight I don’t want to talk to you again,’ and she started to back away from him as she would from something extremely unpleasant.
    But he followed her along the deck, and before they reached the companion ladder he took her arm and squeezed it a little remorselessly to prevent her once more inviting a disaster that had so nearly occurred before.
    ‘You’re a foolish child,’ he said, but with perfect amiability. ‘Because I said you were not as beautiful as Sarah — and you aren’t! — you reacted like a spiteful teenager instead of a young woman in her twenties. However,